The price is always cheaper: the wine is that still true?

Of learned experts looking at the cradle of wine quality decree said, without appeal, “beneath a sale price of € x – the figure varies depending on the weight of the media expert said – a wine is not worthy of being awarded the title of AOC. ” It has the merit of simplicity, it strikes simple minds but it is often silly. In fact the sale price to consumers has sometimes little correlation with the cost of wine.


I remind those who care as their first shirt in the value of wine, as in any business, there is the value of the work of cultivating the vine, made wine, sells, Compensation capital employed for the land, exploitation. What is the winemaker is dimenssion company manages, a banker, customers, suppliers. In short, after the end of the price of wines it offers on the market will, of course, as far as possible, depending upon what it has cost, but also many other factors it can not control necessarily: reputation of the appellation, his own reputation, the overall volume of the harvest, the vintage quality, state of local demand, the domestic or export its commercial, its pricing policy .. . What many of these gentlemen who are only interested in the bottle ignore it or pretend to ignore the wide margin between the survival of a company, its pure keeping just above the line waterline, its prosperity and its sustainability after all.

How well do they work winemakers remunerate the amount of work involved, especially in the commercial act. How have the capacity to do for their operating capital? I dare not address the issue of land where the owner-mine many of our vineyards. The future is at a precision viticulture, conscious of both the environment, quality of health of the vines and grapes, and underestimating the inputs and their costs, the price of wine must be understood in relation to its capacity within a given production system, to allow a winery to ensure its sustainability. So beyond the approximations, views to the punch, the less and less as the only performance variable qualitative prohibitions on collective understanding of water stress, what matters is the ability of our viticulture segment by segment, to accept a price positioning himself to ensure its development.

And that’s where everything far more complicated. Indeed, the old adage, “The price is always cheaper,” which served as my title, which meant that the price level was certainly a guarantee of quality, thus a good pair of shoes worth more than three pairs of shoes in two balls, does not really progress. Sometimes prices fell on his head, or more precisely those who fix them or those who accept them have lost in the words of his good sense Charentes Tesserons Alfred de Pontet-Canet “If I announce a price too low, it reflects that the wine is bad, if I post a price too high, they take me for a lunatic. The job of the brokers is to say what I just said in diplomatic terms, “It’s awesome, incredible, amazing, in this early twenty-first century dominated by the instantaneous electronic fault he still Missi Dominici, men flesh and bones, which are intermediaries between a handful of owners and a large load of buyers.

And during those days “More than half of Bordeaux producers are in financial difficulty,” headlined the magazine Decanter. Besides the 700 € the bottle of the twelve great castles, “the price of a barrel of 900 liters – 1200 bottles set by dealers and merchants of Bordeaux AOC has fallen to 600 €,” wrote Jane Anson in Bordeaux. The journalist quotes Bernard Fargues, president of the Union of Bordeaux: “The producers are in trouble are not able to withstand the pressure of falling prices.” If I mention the difficulties of the Bordeaux wine growing is for reasons geographical proximity, but without reaching such differences, the gap is widening in all major areas between viticulture ability to capture the market value in persuading him that “the price is always cheaper ‘and another who suffers , of sticks, battle still drawing increasingly on price, lived by his wits or runaway.
And let no one tell me that she even has its share is purely the result of globalization. Indeed, these wines downstairs – both AOC wines that country – which fill much of the GD-rays and hard discount is struggling on the domestic French market where competition is mainly between the major production regions . Of course the global crisis, which hit hard the wine exported has an effect of withdrawal of wines from top to the French market for bargain prices, which have worsened the situation. As we tried to explain our strategy note Cap 2010 that we had to face was not just a crisis of adjustment, but a change of era. Our competitors were producing wine while we continue to cling to a model while leveling AOC generator and lack of effective resource management of our grapes.

Some proponents of the status quo, have enjoyed the gallery, leaving us believe that we wanted to undermine the fine building of the AOC, so we wanted to restore its meaning. It was not for show or to please the doctors of the law but quite simply that our winemaking, in all its diversity, can live.

Why bite the umpteenth reminder? All foolishly responding to many questions – I checked on the issue of France Inter “We’ll try” – but the European story of PDO and PGI and wine without GI what is it exactly ? My answer is unambiguous: to absolutely nothing if some of our vineyards, through the voice of those in charge, refused to adapt their production conditions for the wines they want to put on the market. Clearly produce the grapes in the best economic conditions relative to the segment on which the wine will be sold: it is better to make a good country wine appellation that neither good nor bad but many people no longer interested. Also some local wine volume would be well advised to get their side hello wine without GI. The time bistrouille, grapes passenger acrobatics varied and diverse assemblages of uncertainty should be behind us.

The AOC is certainly always a right one may claim for its wines but it is denatured by leaving door open for those who want to drown in Brussels the big barrel of PGI or those who will reap dividends in producing quality wines in the best economic assets. Such is life, France may very well abandon its position as a major general of the wine country first of all its neighbors Spain and Italy but also to those newcomers who know better than we combine the wine in all these states. No seriously tell the great masters of wine but about “what will we live tomorrow?”